I am curious about the political parties of italy. I wonder if anyone could post a link or recommend a book on them. since I am a citizen now I would like to vote but honestly feel like I have no right to vote. I never miss an election here in the states but feel that since I have never even been there I would obviously be making uneducated votes when it came to italy. Can anyone offer some advice ?

I live here and I don't vote. Here you don't vote for the person representing the party. You vote for the party. Then the party decides who will sit in the seat. It might be the guy who represented the party in your area, but it might not. It might just be a guy who is owed a favour by the party.The parties switch sides depending on which way the wind is blowing or who is throwing money around. In a country where the parliament stenographers make almost 300,000 euro a year, while the store cashier makes 800 a month clear (if she is lucky) it is hard to vote for anyone. Projects get started before elections and then the money 'disappears' presumably into someone's pocket. Berlusconi created the law allowing Italians living outside the country the right to vote AND have a representive in the Italian parliament. What other country does this? Except for military and diplomats of course. He thought it would benefit him and his party. All it did was create more seats, more paycheques and huge pensions for the retired MP's.If you saw the last referendum you will understand. It was worded in such a way that it was possible to believe you were voting YES, when you were voting NO. The Minister of Defence recently (since the crisis) purchased 100 or more Ferrari's for retired Generals! Cheating is so ingrained that even Doctors doing private visits don't give receipts and the people are afraid to ask for one in case the price goes up! I could go on. If you never plan to live here, stay home on voting day. Send a message.

I also live here and I DO vote -- but that's because I'm an Italian citizen and ALLOWED to vote. By the way, it might be a good idea for people who spell "paycheck" as "paycheque" to go back to Britain and stop bad-mouthing my country. Grazie.

​As a nation state, Italy has emerged only in 1871. Until then the country was politically divided into a large number of independant cities, provinces and islands. The currently available evidences point out to a dominant Etruscan, Greek and Roman cultural influence on today's Italians.The earliest...

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